Saints-49ers run comparison

You notice the space.

It’s hard to miss — just how much room 49ers ballcarriers had to operate with last season. San Francisco has plenty of players who can run someone over or make a guy miss, but there weren’t many times those players had to make something happen at the beginning of their run because the scheme and the blockers had taken care of that for them.

One of the bigger misconceptions about Klint Kubiak’s arrival in New Orleans is that the offensive coordinator is bringing a completely different style of running game with him. He’s not. The Saints and 49ers used many of the same primary concepts.

Both teams love outside zone and ranked in the top five in attempts last season. The 49ers totaled 221 outside zone carries; the Saints had 154. And both teams worked a lot of inside zone and man concepts off of those looks.

The difference is in how the teams called plays and presented them to the defense. And we can see some huge fundamental differences right off the top.

The 49ers used motion on these plays, and the Saints did not

Talking about motion will get annoying at some point, but it’s a tool the 49ers use so well and leads to a high level of success. The Saints will almost certainly bring elements of this to their offense, so we need to get to know how and why it works.

San Francisco tallied 178 outside zone runs that featured motion last season and averaged 5.7 yards per carry on those attempts. The Saints only had 75 attempts with motion. But here’s the annoying thing about the New Orleans offense. On the plays with motion, the Saints gained 4 yards per carry. They averaged 3.4 yards per carry on runs without it.

They enjoyed an uptick in production, yet they never employed motion the way they should have.

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Personnel looks

The Saints didn’t do a bad job of mixing things up last year — as far as the basic personnel packages out of which they used these runs. The Saints had 88 attempts out of 11 (one running back, one tight end, three receivers) personnel, and 38 attempts out of 12 (one running back, two tight ends, two receivers) personnel. No other look had more than 10 attempts.

(Note: On personnel groupings, the first number is how many running backs are on the field, and the second number is how many tight ends. The unlisted number is the number of wide receivers, but you can figure that out by subtracting the sum of the first two numbers from five since there are five skill players on the field for every snap)

But they weren’t the 49ers.

San Francisco had 91 attempts out of 21 personnel, 53 out of 11 personnel, 46 out of 12 personnel and 30 out of 22 personnel.

The 49ers just do a better job of telling the defense a story and disguising their intentions. By operating so evenly out of so many different looks, defenses had a harder time getting a read, which makes it difficult to predict run or pass, or even run type. The Saints didn’t hide their intentions as well.

And there was one pretty decent tell with one of their players. If Taysom Hill was on the field, there was almost zero chance the Saints were going to use an outside zone run. He was on the field for nine total outside zone runs when the Saints were in their primary personnel. He might not be the best player to be on the field blocking, but they needed to mix it up a little better than that.

Better traffic

On its face, there isn’t a major difference in how opponents defended both teams.

The Saints saw seven or more defenders in the box on 83% of their outside zone attempts last season. The 49ers ended up around the same percentage but mixed it more with heavier offensive looks.

The breakdown by offensive personnel is similar for both teams, but the 49ers used heavier offensive looks, which creates some advantages. And remember, the use of motion takes defenders out of position to make a play, even if it still keeps them in the box. So, some things will count the same, even if it shows up that way in a generic charting of box defenders.

And that tactical design of the running game shows up in some material ways. San Francisco ballcarriers averaged 1.8 yards before contact per rushing attempt on outside zone plays last season. Saints ballcarriers averaged 1.0 yards on those plays.

But let’s isolate that even further to the elite players in each offense.

Running back Christian McCaffrey averaged 2.1 yards before contact per attempt on those plays. Alvin Kamara checked in at 1.1.

There are a lot of things that go into something like that. McCaffrey might simply be better right now, and the 49ers probably have a better offensive line than the Saints. But designing a better run game can only help.

And if the Saints can get Kamara just a little bit more space, his overall rushing average should increase, which would then take some pressure off of quarterback Derek Carr.

There is a lot that can be done to improve the offense. Boosting the efficiency of this run scheme will go a long way.

More on Kubiak's arrival:

• What will Klint Kubiak's Saints offense look like? We turn to the 49ers for some clues

• How Klint Kubiak will get the ball out of Derek Carr's hand faster and why that should spark Saints offense

• Exploring how Klint Kubiak can sharpen Saints offense through study of 49ers' orbit return motion

• Which players benefit most from Saints hiring Klint Kubiak?

• Members Only: Are our expectations too high for Saints offense under Klint Kubiak?